You didn't do nothing.

    I pulled my jacket tight against the frosted wind. The same wind that had brought me out,  driven me from my cabin. Now, it pushed me back, froze my eyes close, making me sleepy. Hearing your song fading had brought me out, bringing only my flashlight and axe. I gripped them to keep my fingers from going numb.
    The snow had been falling all day. It didn't change when I ran out of my cabin, searching for you. Your cry had been faint, but it wasn't distant. I could feel you on that wind, as if it was your breath. I was hunting for you, in frozen temperatures with only a coat.

Dreams #2

One of my friends wanted to meet me for a camping trip at his old school. I went to the school to meet him after talking to him on the phone, and there was a bunch of people just hanging out at the school. I then saw a figure in the distance walking back to his car, and I asked someone by me who it was and he said "He never comes up here alone, it's like he's scared." The figure then got into the car and started driving away, but before he passed the school he threw a rock at me which struck my shoulder, numbing my entire arm and knocking me out. The figure was the friend I was meeting.

Hey Joe,

this counts.

Dreams #1

My girlfriend was a French-Italian gangster. They specialized in the drug trade, mainly heroin and cocaine, and were quite successful at it. They were based out of Paris. I took no part in any of it, but rather just knew about it, but didn't think that much about it. The main sequence of the dream was in the Palace of Versailles, where my girlfriend with her two dream sisters were sorting cocaine and heroin, while her three dream brothers sat at a long table right behind them talking about the cops and stuff. I was there to get my girlfriend, and I talked to the head brother for a bit. Then, in a dark alley with her against the wall crying, she told me that she had left a note for her brother because he was mad at her, telling him that she was going to bust the operation and tell the police about it. She was scared. Then I woke up.

Blog Reflection #2

With my seventh creative act, the poem "High Back Chair", I struggled with the writing of it. I originally conceived the idea after seeing a High Back Chair on someones lawn with a free sign on it while riding my bike. I thought about how something that obviously has so much history and craft put into it is just being tossed out, and how I felt about it. However, what I want to talk more about is the struggle I felt while writing it.

Creative Act #8

For my creative act this week, I've included the beginning of a short story I'm working on that is highly unedited. I did this because I think it can be more interesting to see the process of how people complete their creative acts, and thus by showing this little bit of what how I do it I can show my creative process.

Creative Act #7

High Back Chair

When I saw you
with your oak legs
sunk into that
golden lawn, I wondered why
you left me alone
in my magazine house.

"Maybe I should take
you home"

but that corner has
been filled, and
your colleages gone
because like
children playing outside
you never happen anymore.

It's time to get serious...

If I don't post some sort of new, edited/unedited creative work each week, whoever figures it out can give me a solid punch. Or eat my lunch. Or any other kind of punishment. I need to get serious.

Can Creativity Be Taught?

Creativity is one of those non-spatial things that no one can define or grasp. It isn't something specific, like pottery, and it isn't something general, like sports. It's a category inside a category, where different acts are all defined creative, but those acts are not always creative. A painting could be good, but it could also be a good painting that doesn't do anything creative, either mimicking a style or copying a subject. This brings to question, can creativity be taught?

Creative Being #6

Crane
Originally uploaded by personmaker2000

So origami is something that I've had an interest in for a very long time, so I decided I might as well learn to make the classic one, a crane.

So everything I know how to make with origami has been very simple. The crane is a step above everything else. It involves much more folding, and thus I found out just how hard it is to use normal paper as opposed to origami paper. It doesn't fold as nicely, I found out, making it really hard to make good looking folds. So, as I found out, origami can actually be hard. Very hard.

Harbor Stories

Salt whistling through my hands
took my papers, like
sails full, fluttering higher, until
at their height
they unfurled
a flock of seagulls
passing on the wind,
ink from tip to tip.

And as sailors look to them
for guidance home
through the fog,
I looked to them
hoping they'd take me.

Snowghosts

I went out into that white,
but couldn't believe it was still there
when I blinked
as I'd been told tales of winter mornings
that melted to swampy nights

Broken chestnuts sounded
with each step as I explored
that earth-caught cloud,
down the driveway
some cast off car wash
caught my foot,
brought my view to earth

Above me, hundreds of
giant white flowers speckled
on the trees, a winter coat
given by a concerned mother.

Creative Being #5

Necklace
Originally uploaded by personmaker2000

This is a necklace that I whittled from a piece of wood I found. I had never whittled before, but felt the need for some reason. The leather I bought but the hole I had created was too small, so I had to cut it in half to make it fit. A very excruciating process.

Creative Being #4

granola
Originally uploaded by personmaker2000

So for this week, I decided to try my hand baking some granola bars, a healthy staple of anyones diet. Of course, being a student and not having the right ingredients nor the right utensils, I set about replacing and trying new ingredients. Of course, sometimes it's good to go with the recipe, and my granola bars turned out tasting more like sugar then anything else.

Blog Reflection #1

In my very first blog post, when I posted the recording of me reading my poem aloud, I wasn't too sure how it was "creative". All I was doing was reading something I had written, which felt creative, but I couldn't really define it. However, looking back, I can say with certainty it was creative. In "An Inquiry into the Factors Related to Creativity", Klein gives out nine common aspects of creativity. Now, the sense I get from reading that list is that creativity is doing something new and pushing your limits. That applies to me reading my poem, which is something new.

This has me thinking now about my creative process as a whole. Whatever I do, whether it's writing or drawing a picture, I think of what I've seen and done. Past experience influence me, and I always try to do something that I haven't seen before, or take something and change it subtly. originality is important to me, so it makes sense that it shows through all my work. Being "real" towards your acts.

I'm also thinking about the article we had to read this week ("The Creative Habit: Learn it and use it for life"), about our views on the world. I would have to say that, going from the experience of recording myself, I'm more focused on the details. I practiced reading that poem about a dozen times, trying to get my pronounciation down so that my slight lisp doesn't show. Phrasing each word correctly.

So viewing this poem restrospectly like this has shown me some things about my creative process, getting me to think about how I try new things all the time, and don't shy away from the details when it comes time to get close. Afterall, I just read the poem because I had never done anything like that before.

Creative Being #3

I wrote another poem for this weeks creative act, and this one is different from my normal writing. I went for a rhyming tone instead of a breathy, multiple syllable one, opting to use alliteration to give it a nice sound. This isn't something I usually do, and as such I took some liberties, inserting some words that weren't part of the alliteration to make it sounds better. I also ended it with a non-alliteration line, just so it would pop out.

Ranting ran through red
while white lilies wade wherever my eyes lie,
discrepancies destroyed during my delay
to touch taste take the moment.
Action avoided to attain peace
but just belated beastly events.
Long life is if
one only owns to now
or thinks of present, and not future.

Creative Being #2

Knitting a scarf
Originally uploaded by personmaker2000

Knitting is something that is still fairly new to me. I've done a little, but I've never actually finished anything, so I decided to use the little knowledge I have to experiment a bit, by alternating stiches and using some new, thicker wool. Sadly, it's starting to curl. Of course, no where close to finished, but a good two hours in.

Creative Being #1

So I decided to post my poem I did for my writing class. However, instead of copy-pasting it, I chose to read it, as I’m constantly told poetry is for hearing, not reading. This isn't something I normally do, and it has helped with me editing it and getting a natural flow going. It's definitely something I'm going to try doing more, and I'm glad I did it. It’s untitled right now, as well as being in a rough stage. I also included the text below.




As a winter wind passed through my hands,
picking up my papers and spreading them
like doves trying to harbor peace,
I tried to give body
to something so abstract as this beauty.
But as even birds have to land eventually,
and paper can only float, not fly,
I left it as is,
on that February day.